The university was established by the promulgation of an 45th Ordinance of 2020 to that effect by Governor of Kerala on 25 September 2020[1] and was inaugurated by Pinarayi Vijayan, chief minister of Kerala, on 2 October 2020 in a function held at Kollam.

The university has been named after Narayana Guru and has its headquarters at Kureepuzha in Kollam.

[2][3] P M Mubarak Pasha was appointed as the first vice-chancellor and S V Sudheer as the first pro-vice-chancellor of the university.

[5] In November 2022, the Kerala government amended the Act to permit state public universities to offer open and distance learning programmes not provided by the SGOU.

After the order, these universities began offering non-overlapping programmes.